Building Partially Collapses Onto Parked Cars During Storm On Long Island
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) – A building partially collapsed, burying a line of parked cars, during last night's storms on Long Island.
When firefighters arrived on the scene in Farmingdale, one side of the Cris Ray Printing building was completely exposed and car alarms were going off.
Employees at the lab next door couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"We just heard like thunder and lightning and then all of a sudden, people are coming in screaming, 'check your cars, a building collapsed.' We walk out and this is what we see," Ivonne Barraza told CBS2. "It looked like something out of a movie. Seeing your car under a whole bunch of rubble like that, it's scary."
Jessica Boros could barely see her new car.
"I just bought the car six months ago," she said.
Police, K9s and firefighters with thermal-imaging cameras searched for victims in the vehicles and rubble, but no one was injured.
"Me especially on my lunch break, I know other co-workers, we like to go take our naps in our cars, so we are very thankful that nobody was in their vehicle and luckily nobody got hurt," Barraza said.
The managers of Cris Ray say the storm tore through the garage door in the back and blew out the wall of fthe warehouse. Employees were cleaning up the debris Friday, and they're still trying to assess all the damage.
Thursday's storms intensified in Farmingdale and surrounding communities after 9 p.m.
The heavy rain and strong winds took down trees and left thousands of people without power.
The Primm family was inside their West Babylon home when an elm tree collapsed onto vehicles.
"We thought a plane was coming down low or something, and then all of a sudden the wind just came this way and the tree fell right on both cars," Robert Primm said.
In nearby Lindenhurst, a tree went through the roof of the Bachmann family's home. They say they had recently redone their house. Everything was brand new and repainted about six months ago.
"So quick and harsh, seemed almost worse than a hurricane, and no power here at all," Lindenhurst resident Gina Kane said.
Heathcote Road was off limits as PSEG moved in to deactivate live wires.
Police in Islip were directing traffic as lights malfunctioned without power.
"Tree went against the pole with the transformer and then snapped the rest of these wires," Larry Lyman, of Islip, said.
"A gust of wind, we heard the crack, and then the tree just toppled over," Nancy Melillo, of Amityville, said. "And everybody had power lines wrapped around their cars, ripped off their homes and it was scary."
"It was like a freight train coming through. Wind, rain, unbelievable lightning, thunder," Farmingdale resident Marty Lindblad said. "Everything just went black."
"When we got to Staple Street, it felt like we were driving into a war zone because there were so many trees down, and it reminded me of Hurricane Sandy," Farmingdale resident Terry Bell said.
Residents, lightning candles, begged for power to be restored.
"The storm definitely came out of nowhere. Impacted 75,000 customers. We called all of our employees and contractors last night at 10 p.m.," Daniel Eichhorn, of PSEG Long Island, said. "They worked through the night. We've restored a good number of customers, about 50,000 customers in the overnight hours, and we are going to continue to work around the clock until everybody is back."
According to PSEG, Suffolk County was hit the hardest. At its peak, 36,000 customers were in the dark.
Click here for the latest outage map from the utility.
Contacting Local Utility Companies
Suffering a power outage or have an issue to report to your local utility company? Here's a list of the usual suspects from around our area to reach for help.
* ConEdison: 1-800-752-6633
* Central Hudson: 845-452-2700
* NYSEG: 1-800-572-1111
* National Grid: 1-800-930-5003 (Long Island & the Rockaways) or 1-800-642-4272 (Upstate New York)
* PSE&G New Jersey: 1-800-436-7734
* PSEG Long Island: 1-800-490-0025 or 631-755-6000
* Rochester Gas & Electric: 1-800-743-2110
* National Fuel: 1-800-365-3234
